Laid off with a monthly mortgage payment. How do you manage?

You’ve lost your job. Who are you going to call?

It might have to be your mortgage lender.

A cooling job market is colliding with high homeownership costs, putting many people into a particular new squeeze: a loss of income and a monthly payment that was already hard to manage. At the same time, 42% of homeowners report expensive hidden costs and 16% say their mortgage payment is too high in Bankrate’s 2025 Home Affordability Report. Bankrate talked to recently laid off homeowners to find out how they’re dealing with it.

“I was definitely stressed out,” says Taylor Brione Ballard, 33, who lost her job at a nonprofit only a month after locking in a new mortgage.

“I did take some time to cry, and then I had to get my big girl pants on.”

We also talked to mortgage professionals who recommended a number of potential options, especially for those who get in touch directly with their loan servicer.

If you lose your job, call your lender right away

You should contact your mortgage servicer as soon as you anticipate financial hardship, says Hala Garmo, regional mortgage manager for U.S. Bank. They can help you come up with a plan — after all, they have a financial incentive to keep you paying your mortgage.

Your mortgage servicer may not be the same lender you applied with to get your mortgage. It’s common for lenders to sell servicing rights, which means you’ll start paying your mortgage to a different company. If that’s happened to you, you’ll want to reach out to your servicer...